The Belgian diplomat, Patrice Lumumba, and Africa’s sliding doors momentThe killing of Patrice Lumumba, DR Congo’s first democratically-elected prime minister, shaped decades of crisis, failed governments and tension in the Great Lakes region. And the death of the Belgian diplomat who had been due to stand trial in relation to his execution closes a chapter on Belgium’s dark colonial past.
With EU foreign ministers ready to discuss possible sanctions on Rwanda at a meeting in Brussels next Monday, DR Congo communications minister Patrick Muyaya says the EU should match US sanctions over the eastern DR Congo invasion and reconsider its controversial minerals deal with Rwanda.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions under its Global Magnitsky Act in the wake of the Rwandan army and the M23 militia group capturing the city of Ulvira in the South Kivu province of eastern DR Congo last year
The EU’s crisis commissioner Hadja Lahbib has made a three-day visit to eastern DR Congo and Burundi this week, to see for herself the scale of the refugee crisis.
